Have today’s PhD programs become avenues to write (any) article, instead of gaining (some) knowledge?

Have today’s PhD programs become avenues to write (any) article, instead of gaining (some) knowledge?

Once, while sharing lunch with a PhD student, I discussed about the progress of his thesis. He said that he was more concerned with publishing articles to get selected by a premier B-school (on completing the PhD program). I asked whether a PhD program was meant for publishing articles? (That was under the premise that my professors had emphasized on gathering knowledge to write a decent dissertation than writing articles.)

However, he argued that to join an ivey league university, he needed to publish. He said that his CV may not move to the shortlisting phase, if he didn't have publications. He also said that he wanted to study and gain as much knowledge as he could, but writing articles was an imperative for him to get a decent job. Then I said, "Well, I don't have any problems with your aspirations to join an ivey league university. In that case, please accept that you're using knowledge as a means to achieve an end and not as an end in itself. That means, you're selectively garnering knowledge so that it's helpful to write articles like many MBA students do to get a job." He replied, "May be."

Why am I sharing this here? Well, please read further...

... Once we clarify our aims and objectives in life, much of the problems get solved. Publishing articles, joining an Ivey league university, getting name and fame, and so on are alright; but as a PhD student one must pursue knowledge as an end and not as a means to meet her/his ends; because s/he isn't becoming a teacher for her/himself, but for the masses. Hence, a PhD student must study more and ask more number of critical questions rather than trying to solve some immediate empirical problems (and write articles) with her/his 'knowledge as a means' attitude.

After all, all needn’t become fire-fighters, tackling the problems at hand; some need also to become trouble-shooters, envisioning the way forward. Now let’s go back to the penultimate part of our story.

I couldn't convince him. And I also said that I understood his points and empathised with him. However, thereafter started a different self-conversation within me: 1. whether joining an Ivey league university was all that a doctoral student should aim at? (If all will join these institutions, who'll teach the larger sections of society?) 2. Why do we often forget that many of us (including him) had started our lives not from an Ivey league school like Doon or Loyala but from schools located in small townships? (Isn't it an imperative for us to pay back to society and in the process learn more about societal problem.) 3. Isn't there a danger of falling into the rigid mind-sets of professors who serve in the Ivey league universities, thereby getting into the trap of prioritising their paradigms (styles of looking at and understanding the world), and not ours and in the process becoming neither them nor us but a confused lot?

Probing deeper into things, I remembered a quote that I had used in the very last page of my PhD dissertation. That is, what the Ivey league university professors actually mean and do by publishing? In 1993, in the Academy of Management presidential address, Donald C. Hambrick (1994, p. 13), Evan Pugh Professor and the Smeal Chaired Professor of Management, Smeal College of Business, at The Pennsylvania State University; Bronfman Professor Emeritus, Columbia Business School, Columbia University; has succinctly answered this issue as the following.

"Each August, we [academics] come to talk with each other; during the rest of the year we [in a narcissistic manner] read each-others' papers in our journals and write our own papers so that we may, in turn, have an audience the following August: an incestuous, closed loop."

(Every year, in August, scholars and practitioners of management gather in the Academy of Management Conference in the North America.)

Are the PhD students (and their professors) listening?

At this juncture of the human civilization, society expects more from the teachers and would-be-teachers; don't use knowledge as means to your ends of writing articles and in turn have narcissistic pleasure as Hambrick (1994) has pointed out above. The bottom line is One must gain as much knowledge as possible. In doing so, s/he will be doing a greater service to society and to her/himself in the long run. I say this to the future industry managers/leaders in the PG classes and I also say it to the future teacher in the PhD programs. At the same time, I ain't claiming that my words are from the Holy Grail. Because, to each, her/his own! J

Gourav Roy asked me the following question. “Sir, last year when I was giving interview for Fpm, I saw so many people like that particular student, if I'm not wrong 90% of the Fpm students are around 30-35 they were not happy with their jobs..so they saw PhD as an option..I've a question, why an institution like iim k is not giving value to those students who want to pursue FPM with passion, why the people who just want to come out from their jobs are given the edge..one shouldn't do PhD for a quality faculty job I think...phd carries a different meaning..I'll wait for ur response[.]”

I responded in the following manner. Here is my response, Gaurav. Firstly, I'm sorry for your failure until now in finding a PhD scholarship. But, I know with gut and grinding you'll hit the bullseye. And, believe me, I ain't merely speculating; rather, I know what I'm saying. Try. Now coming to the questions you've raised, I won't answer them in a too predictable or trivial manner. I'll answer philosophically. You know what, Gaurav! I did my PhD from Italy not because of my choice; but I'm an 'Accidental PhD holder from Italy'. :) I went there to pursue higher studies because I possibly saw the last door to a PhD program in India getting shut right in front of me. (My late parents were professors; even they couldn't help me. Possibly, neither I nor they had many 'right' contacts!) :( I ain't lying; it's 100 percent true. You may consider me as lucky because I could get a chance to do PhD in Italy, but luck doesn't happen by chance (mind my words: doesn't); one need to keep trying as I did. So, I'll again say, keep trying. :) As regard many of the PhD aspirants whom you met were frustrated with their profession and could have thought PhD as an a panacea to their problems, all I would like to say is the following. The people who come to do PhD because they're frustrated with their existing profession actually do two disservices to society: 1. spoiling the name of a job/company that they're presently doing/being associated with, and 2. spoiling the PhD eco-system that thrives on with the presence of passionate people (not frustrated ones). Trying to enter a PhD program to do something meaningful isn't the real problem, though. Rather, the real problem is to enter a PhD program and (ab)using it as a frustration management means. And then, they create a vicious cycle for themselves and for others whereby they tend to take shortcuts and using the PhD program as a means to meet their end, i.e., becoming 'qua scholars'; thereby defeating the knowledge creation purpose that a PhD program stands for. Paraphrasing Einstein, they just forget that one can't solve the problems of the past (read frustration in their case) with the same kind of thinking that in the first place have created those problems (read short-sighted tactics that they had used in their previous profession, i.e., choosing a profession without knowing the person-vocation, person-job, person-organization fit criteria)! And now comes the zillion dollar question: How to spot them in the first place and bar them from entering a PhD program? Well, my answer is: Gimme a chance; I know I can spot them. Can I stop them? Well, I ain't so powerful! J

References

Hambrick, D. C. (1994). What if the academy actually mattered? Academy of Management Review, 19(1), 11-16.